1. Technical Field
This invention relates to both a network access arrangement and a method of operating such a network access arrangement.
2. Related Art
The most widespread data network in use at present is the well-known public Internet. A client computer such as a personal computer may be connected to the public Internet by a dial-up connection through the public telephone network to an Internet network access server. Alternatively, where a personal computer is connected to a local area network, it may be connected to the public Internet by an access server connected to the local area network.
As will be well known, the Internet utilises protocols such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Higher level applications such as the World Wide Web (WWW or simply Web), running over the Internet, utilise higher level protocols such as HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP). The Web has now become a vastly distributed hypermedia information system, comprising of a huge number of information pages, typically created in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML).
After obtaining a connection to the public Internet, a personal computer is usually configured to issue an HTTP request for a particular HTML home page from a Web server. The identity of the requested home page may either be a default setting in the browser used in the personal computer or set by the user of the personal computer. However, the owner (or otherwise operator) of the network access apparatus may prefer that the first home page seen by the user of the personal computer is a home page provided by the owner of the network access apparatus.